_Will's Coffee-house, Dec. 12._
I was this evening sitting at the side-table, and reading one of my own
papers with great satisfaction, not knowing that I was observed by any
in the room. I had not long enjoyed this secret pleasure of an author,
when a gentleman, some of whose works I have been highly entertained
with,[335] accosted me after the following manner: "Mr. Bickerstaff,
you know I have for some years devoted myself wholly to the Muses, and
perhaps you will be surprised when I tell you I am resolved to take
up and apply myself to business: I shall therefore beg you will stand
my friend, and recommend a customer to me for several goods that I
have now upon my hands." I desired him to let me have a particular,
and I would do my utmost to serve him. "I have first of all," says
he, "the progress of an amour digested into sonnets, beginning with
a poem to the unknown fair, and ending with an epithalamium. I have
celebrated in it, her cruelty, her pity, her face, her shape, her
wit, her good-humour, her dancing, her singing--" I could not forbear
interrupting him: "This is a most accomplished lady," said I; "but has
she really, with all these perfections, a fine voice?" "Pugh," says
he, "you do not believe there is such a person in nature. This was
only my employment in solitude last summer, when I had neither friends
nor books to divert me." "I was going," says I, "to ask her name, but
I find it is only an imaginary mistress." "That's true," replied my
friend, "but her name is Flavia. I have," continued he, "in the second
place, a collection of lampoons, calculated either for the Bath,
Tunbridge, or any place where they drink waters, with blank spaces
for the names of such person or persons as may be inserted in them on
occasion. Thus much I have told only of what I have by me proceeding
from love and malice. I have also at this time the sketch of an heroic
poem upon the next peace:[336] several indeed of the verses are either
too long or too short, it being a rough draught of my thoughts upon
that subject." I thereupon told him, that as it was, it might probably
pass for a very good Pindaric, and I believed I knew one who would
be willing to deal with him for it upon that foot. "I must tell you
also, I have made a dedication to it, which is about four sides close
written, that may serve any one that is tall, and understands Latin. I
have further, about fifty similes that were never yet applied, besides
three-and-twenty descriptions of the sun rising, that might be of great
use to an epic poet. These are my more bulky commodities: besides
which, I have several small-wares that I would part with at easy
rates; as, observations upon life, and moral sentences, reduced into
several couplets, very proper to close up acts of plays, and may be
easily introduced by two or three lines of prose, either in tragedy or
comedy. If I could find a purchaser curious in Latin poetry, I could
accommodate him with two dozen of epigrams, which, by reason of a few
false quantities, should come for little or nothing."
I heard the gentleman with much attention, and asked him, whether
he would break bulk, and sell his goods by retail, or designed they
should all go in a lump? He told me, that he should be very loth to
part them, unless it was to oblige a man of quality, or any person for
whom I had a particular friendship. "My reason for asking," said I,
"is, only because I know a young gentleman who intends to appear next
spring in a new jingling chariot, with the figures of the nine Muses on
each side of it; and I believe, would be glad to come into the world
in verse." We could not go on in our treaty, by reason of two or three
critics that joined us. They had been talking, it seems, of the two
letters which were found in the coffin, and mentioned in one of my
late lucubrations,[337] and came with a request to me, that I would
communicate any others of them that were legible. One of the gentlemen
was pleased to say, that it was a very proper instance of a widow's
constancy; and said, he wished I had subjoined, as a foil to it, the
following passage in "Hamlet." The young Prince was not yet acquainted
with all the guilt of his mother, but turns his thoughts on her sudden
forgetfulness of his father, and the indecency of her hasty marriage.
----_That it should come to this!
But two months dead! Nay, not so much, not two!
So excellent a king! that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr! So loving to my mother,
That he permitted not the winds of heaven
To visit her face too roughly! Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on. And yet, within a month!
Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!
A little month! or ere those shoes were old,
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobe all tears; why she, even she--
O Heaven! a brute, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourned longer!--married with mine uncle,
My father's brother! But no more like my father
Than I to Hercules! Within a month!
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing of her galled eyes,
She married--O most wicked speed! to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good!
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue_![338]
The several emotions of mind, and breaks of passion, in this speech,
are admirable. He has touched every circumstance that aggravated
the fact, and seemed capable of hurrying the thoughts of a son into
distraction. His father's tenderness for his mother, expressed in so
delicate a particular; his mother's fondness for his father, no less
exquisitely described; the great and amiable figure of his dead parent
drawn by a true filial piety; his disdain of so unworthy a successor to
his bed; but above all, the shortness of the time between his father's
death and his mother's second marriage, brought together with so much
disorder, make up as noble a part as any in that celebrated tragedy.
The circumstance of time I never could enough admire. The widowhood had
lasted two months--this is his first reflection: but as his indignation
rises, he sinks to scarce two months: afterwards into a month; and at
last, into a little month. But all this so naturally, that the reader
accompanies him in the violence of his passion, and finds the time
lessen insensibly, according to the different workings of his disdain.
I have not mentioned the incest of her marriage, which is so obvious a
provocation; but cannot forbear taking notice, that when his fury is at
its height, he cries, "Frailty, thy name is woman!" as railing at the
sex in general, rather than giving himself leave to think his mother
worse than others.--_Desiderantur multa._
* * * * *
Whereas Mr. Jeffery Groggram has surrendered himself by his letter
bearing date December 7, and has sent an acknowledgment that he is
dead, praying an order to the Company of Upholders for interment at
such a reasonable rate as may not impoverish his heirs: the said
Groggram having been dead ever since he was born, and added nothing
to his small patrimony, Mr. Bickerstaff has taken the premises into
consideration; and being sensible of the ingenuous and singular
behaviour of this petitioner, pronounces the said Jeffery Groggram
a live man, and will not suffer that he should bury himself out of
modesty; but requires him to remain among the living, as an example to
those obstinate dead men, who will neither labour for life, nor go to
their grave.
_N. B._--Mr. Groggram is the first person that has come in upon Mr.
Bickerstaff's dead warrant.
* * * * *
Florinda demands by her letter of this day to be allowed to pass for a
living woman, having danced the Derbyshire hornpipe in the presence of
several friends on Saturday last.
Granted; provided she can bring proof, that she can make a pudding on
the 24th instant.